HYGIENE OF RESPIRATION 1 77 



life, shallow breathing, indigestion, lack of exercise and 

 fresh air, the blood had become impure and the lung 

 tissue so corrupted and weakened that it furnished a fer- 

 tile soil for the growth of the germs. (Read note 2, page 

 191.) 



302. Subject for Debate. Resolved, That the Chinese 

 woman has less love for personal deformity than the Cau- 

 casian woman and suffers less from it. 



BACTERIA AND DISEASE 



303. Nature of Germ Diseases. A plant, as an oak or a 

 pear tree, may become affected by a disease called the 

 blight, and such disease is usually regarded as a necessary 

 evil, or an imperfection in creation. Looked at with a 

 broader knowledge, such disease is a sign of growth as well 

 as of decay and is a blessing and not a curse. The micro- 

 scope shows that trees affected with the blight are the seat 

 of the growth of millions of one-celled plants called bacteria. 

 So where there is death and disease, there is flourishing 

 life. The blight did not attack the hardy, sound pear 

 trees, but those of rapid, sappy growth whose tissues had 

 already become injured or dead by the effect of frost or 

 some other agent. The function of the bacteria is to de- 

 stroy unsound vegetable or animal matter by living upon it 

 as food, thus decomposing it and returning it to the soil 

 and the air to be used again. There is no decay without 

 the action of bacteria; without it organic matter would 

 accumulate indefinitely, interfering with life upon the 

 earth. 



304. Molds. Every one has seen fungus plants, such as 

 mushrooms and puff-balls, that do not bear flowers but mul- 

 tiply by spores. They live upon dead logs or where there 

 is much dead organic matter in the soil. Imagine a fun- 

 gus that grows on an average about yj-g- of an inch in 



